I was working as a temp at a law firm in the early aughts. It was a pretty chill atmosphere. All of us temps were off away from the lawyers on a floor in a cube farm. The group of us could bullshit all day with each other. It was a mix of actors, people who wanted a taste of a firm before law school and those, like me, who were there for the paycheck unsure of the next step. These temp gigs could last for years if you let them, and this was my second long run at a firm while I figured out what I wanted to do.
Carolina had started a few weeks after I had and we'd been working together for just short of a year. I'd describe her as quiet and introverted. She was about 35 (I was 30) pretty, of Jamaican descent with a light skin tone (by the way, these last two points describe myself as well. Having been raised in the lily white suburbs, I'd never been with anyone remotely like myself -- nor many women at all for that matter). Carolina was a little chubby, but, being me, the fact that she had enormous tits and a bubble ass made the whole package all good. This is not to say that I was immediately attracted -- neither of us made ourselves conspicuous and for that first year she was just another person in the grind of monotonous temp paralegal work to me.
One day four or five of us were working in a conference room and we were idly chatting about what we would do after working at the firm. Carolina had mentioned that she wanted to write children's books. On my turn, I said I wanted to do stand-up comedy (I'd been doing it, on and off for about 4 years at that point. Eventually I'd realize I wasn't cut out for it). She kind of snorted derisively when I said it.
"Really?" she said.
"Yeah, you don't think I could do it?"
At that point she kind of shook her head and waved me off, seeing that this was probably going to lead to a fight in the workplace. Nobody wanted that.
I was taken aback by her condescension. After that I was torn between avoiding her and confronting her to show her that she was wrong. She'd gotten in my head.
A couple of weeks later we were leaving the building together and I brought it up.
"Why would you think I couldn't do stand up?"
She smirked, "Do YOU think you're funny?"
"I do. I mean, not always at work, but yeah."
"Ok, so why don't you make me laugh?"
"Uh, ok, do you want to get a drink?"
To this day I don't know where I got the balls to ask her out on the spot. Never before nor since have I done that without planning it out. She wasn't free that evening, but we got a drink a few nights later.
After that we went out a few times but neither of us really pushed it to go further than just hanging out. I think we were both waiting for the other person to make the move to something more serious.
We actually stopped dating after about three weeks and a month later one of the firm's vendors threw an afternoon into evening booze cruise in the harbor; I ended up getting quite buzzed. Carolina was there wearing tight white slacks and a black v-neck sweater that showed a hint of cleavage. This was near the end of my run at the firm and I'd given them notice so, in addition to the alcohol, I didn't give as much of a shit about consequences with this particular crowd. We hadn't been around each other much during the cruise but as the ship was pulling back into the pier, I spotted her coming out of the bathroom.
I wish I could remember more of this part of the conversation but it became apparent to me after a minute or two that this might go differently than our chaste dates had. Carolina let me know that she'd had a little too much to drink on the cruise and had just thrown up in the bathroom. I made sure she was going to be alright and walked with her off the boat and down the gangplank. On her way to the corner to hail a cab I stopped her.